Hep C and ALTs – What is Normal ?
Alan Franciscus Twenty to thirty percent of people with HCV have persistently normal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels. It is currently recommended that HCV+ individuals with normal ALT levels should not be treated with antiviral medications and followed simply by measuring their ALT levels. However, emerging data suggests that it may not be this simple. What does this mean for the patient that has persistently normal ALT counts? Should they be biopsied and treated? This is a hot area of research and some recent findings are changing the way the medical profession views this group of HCV+ patients. We know that most HCV+ individuals with persistently normal ALT levels have a less serious disease progression and milder disease. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and European consensus conferences recommended no liver biopsy or antiviral therapy in patients with persistently normal ALT levels outside of clinical trials due to the assumed mild disease progression and low response
